AP World Unit 3
After Genghis Khan’s death, multiple khans like the Yuan Dynasty also started falling apart.
While this is happening, Islam split up into the Sunni and Shi’a with the Delhi Sultanate trying to introduce Islam to a Hindu majority.
Another religious conflict was also going on known as the Crusades.
The main caused of expansion for land-based empires was the use of gunpowder after the Mongol Empire fell
The first major empire was the Ottoman Empire which was founded in the 14th century after the Mongols had fell and the decline of the Seljuk Turks after Osman I.
They used a body of water known as the Dardanelles to start their expansions due to it being a strategic choke point.
The Ottomans are also responsible for the sack of Constantinople because of their gunpowder usage. They then renamed it to Istanbul which helped them grow as an empire.
The second major empire was the Safavid Empire which was founded in the early 1500s with the leaders thinking they were descendants of Muhammad’s cousin.
They were able to expand very limited due to the Ottomans and less diverse as it had a huge population of Iranians, but had huge control over the Indian Ocean and the Silk Road.
The leader had an important announcement to become a Shi’a state.
Before this, the Shi’a and the Sunni had rivalies on who the religious successor for Muhammad can be
The Shi’a believed it was a blood relative, while the Sunni believed it had to be elected.
This conflict was important because it gave other empires the influence that the Safavid was not on their side.
The third major empire was the Mughal Empire which replaced the Delhi Sultanate in the 16th century by Babur.
The expansion was growing from Babur’s son known as Akbar who was extremely religiously tolerant.
It was also really easy to expand due to how decentralized India was.
Akbar had extremely intelligent government knowledge which made the Mughal Empire the most prosperous empire in the 16th century.
They had a conflict as they were coming into Indian which is a Hindu religion despite being Islamic and were a Sunni state.
The 4th most important empire was the Qing Dynasty, which was a replacement from the Ming Dynasty due to internal fragmentation and external wars. The Qing Dynasty was established by the Manchu people (located in the North of China) in 1636.
They set up a 40 year conquest to take the rest of the Ming Dynasty which included Taiwan and Mongolia as well as Central Asia.
A mistake they made however was that they weren’t ethnically Han which caused major conflict later on.
Many conflicts between land-based empires was on religion and politics
The Safavid-Mughal War happened when both of the empires wanted to expand their land to the Persian Gulf in Central Asia. Their rivalry was based on religious conflict with Shi’a and the Sunni, this lasted for decades with no clear victor.
The Songhai-Morrocan Conflict was when the Moroccan Empire wanted to gain wealth and control the Trans-Saharan route due to a weakness in Songhai’s internal stance. The Moroccan empire ended up winning due to having gunpowder while Songhai did not.
The term “legamitze” means to communicate to all their subjects about who’s in power (in other words, making it clear about who has all the power).
The term “consolidate” means to take power from other rulers and claim it for themselves
They communicated their power through the following ways:
Large imperial bureaucracy
Military expansion (also through hiring elite military professionals known as janissaries in the Ottoman Empire)
Religious beliefs (coming to power through the saying on Jesus)
Human sacrifice (mainly the Aztecs)
Using art to portray leaders (Qing dynasty and how the emperor put portraits of him everywhere)
Creating big buildings to understand whos in charge (Louie the 14th in France)
A system of taxation (The Mughal Empire had a taxation system where zaminars would collect taxes on land on behalf of the emperor)
The Ottomans specifically had the Devshirme system where they had appointed government officials that were enslaved.
The Ottomans used tax bidding where whoever bid the most would collect taxes from a group of people, which would sometimes overflow their own pockets with money
The Ottomans built the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul to also show who’s in power.
The Ottomans did NOT have a bureaucracy, instead had a bureacracy military system where they would hire young Christina boys to work as soldiers for a “blood tax” known as janissaries.
The Safavid Empire ruled under a Shah (descendant of Muhammad) who could not pass any laws without the approval of the Grand Minister
Local Khans could also rule but had to provide a stable army for the Shah
The Ali Qapu Palace was built for the Shah to show off power, as well as mosques.
Like the Ottomans, they took young Christina boys for the military but also forced Shi’a Islam onto Sunnis.
Jihad (the idea of converting non-believers to Islam) is still happening today!
The Ottomans and the Safavid empire fought in 9 years over the span of 200 years.
Countries in that region (Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey) are still fighting till this day!
The Safavid Empire used a tax system where we use today (livestock, roads, sales, and farm products).
The Mughal Empire divided itself into 15 provinces that were divided into districts
Akbar then chose a military leader, taxation, imperial household, and a judiciary.
You could appeal a conviction/sentence directly to him.
Built the Taj Mahal which plended Persian, Indian, and Turkish style to show off power.
For the military, Akbar wanted government officials from local districts and regions to appoint soldiers
They used infantry, cavalry, fire-arms, elephants, and war boats.
The Renassiance occured all throughout the 1300s which brought new ways of ideas and thinking, as well as adopting Ancient Greek and Roman arts
Things happeneded throughout the Renaissance like the invention of the printing press, new middle class, new use of languages rather than latin
The idea of an indulgence was that you had to pay for a slip of paper for God to “forgive your sins” which was many of the corrupt practices the Church was doing.
Martin Luther, who graduated from law school and was a monk, had an idea that salvation comes through faith, which the Catholic Church challenged
John Wittenberg challenged this by saying that things like baptisms would allow for your salvation to be saved (which of course also costed money)
In protest, Martin Luther put a paper on the Church’s door which was the “95 Thesis” that criticised indulges and corrupt church practices in October 31st, 1517.
He also criticized that rituals did not save souls and the church and pope made errors all the time.
This event was called the Protest Reformation which split up the Church.
He also made it so that the bible was accessible for everyone instead of priests by putting it in german instead of latin.
When the scriptures became accessible, people started to create spinoffs like Calvinists and Anabaptists
This also started to create Protestant churches that claimed they knew the one way to worship game
Because of these protests, the church did Catholic Reformation and the council of Trent which represents change by removing corrupt practices.
But they still contniuned with faith not being only salvation, and the nature of bilibal authority as well as keeping the permanent church split.
This religious division caused many wars later on until 1646, with the most famous one being the Thirty Year War
The king then to started exerted authority to remove the Pope from power, by either actually agreeing or to just get more power
People would try to side with the Catholic to inherit the power just in case the Catholic Church wins the conflict.
The creation of Sikhism happended from movements like the Bkhati, as well as the Mughal Empire taking over Hindu majority land (syncretism)
Monotheistic
Cycle of life, death, and rebirth based on one’s karma
Pray multiple times a day
Focused on peace and taking care of one’s neighbor.